that Corning will in fact release thunderbolt optical cables as long as 330' long ! This means that you will be possibly able to use a new Mac Pro with TBolt 2 as a server, and run these cables instead of using a 10G switch. The 33' long cable will sell at $325, so I can't even imagine what the 330' cable will cost, but for a small workgroup, with 5 users or under, this does in fact look promising.

So THANKS GREG for your persistence.

Bob Zelin
ps - it currently appears that no one is talking about releasing a thunderbolt hub or switch, so you will be "stuck" with buying a new Mac Pro to accomplish this. Not a bad thing to be "stuck" with, however.

I have never used these. But according to these websites, yes - they just plug in, and work. I have no idea of how an optical transceiver is going to work - I guess it's buss powered, but I find it amazing - especially on a long laser, like the 330' thunderbolt cable - that it can be buss powered from the Thunderbolt port.

I am only looking at this now, because our friend Greg was so cranky about all of this. But (in contrast to the article I posted about current Thunderbolt 1 tests that were not wonderful so far) - Greg in fact may be 100%, at least with Thunderbolt 2, and this may be a cheap way (relatively speaking) to get a small workgroup (under 5 users) to all connect to one storage array. And who knows what the future holds. There may be no Thunderbolt 2 switches or hubs now, but who knows what will come out in the near future. Certainly companies like Sonnet are trying to make as much Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2 products as possible. So a company like this may in fact come up with something.